After two whole years of college, it’s safe to say that I’ve made a lot of friends and lost a lot of friends in the past few years. College is such an important time of individual growth and as we change and evolve it only makes sense that our relationships with those closest to us will change and evolve as well. That being said, here are a few lessons on friendship that I’ve learned over the past couple of years.
Lesson 1: Friends emerge from weird places, let them.
Yes, that random guy in your philosophy class, that acquaintance that you see every morning before your 9am, or that person you spend your three-hour shift at work with could end up being your best friend. If you asked me a year ago if I thought I would be friends with the people I am close with now, I probably would’ve said no. The universe has a very interesting way of bringing you closer to people you wouldn’t expect but it’s up to you to give them the space to enter your life, which leads me to lesson 2.
Lesson 2: Don’t judge an acquaintance by their cover.
For a long time, I convinced myself that I knew everything I needed to know about a person just from my first impression of them. Although this is true sometimes, a lot of times it led me to write off certain people completely before I truly got to know them. So yes, that guy you see every day around breakfast may have a really stoic facial expression 90% of the time. But maybe he’s not a morning person and he’s a lot friendlier past noon.
Lesson 3: The right environment is a major key.
If there was a perfect formula for relationships, I think this aspect would be most likely to get left out. You could meet the perfect person tomorrow but if it’s not the right environment for that connection to deepen, that relationship isn’t going to go anywhere. When I walked into my first meeting for my Jamaica Magis trip last semester, I was really familiar with a lot of the people in the room. Even though I knew some of them for a year prior to the trip, going to Jamaica made us a family and brought me closer to some of them than I could I have ever imagined based on our first interactions. Going to a Caribbean island for two weeks in order to become friends with someone is a bit of an extreme, but you probably get the idea.
Lesson 4: Know when to leave the table.
College is a really common time to fall into friendships of convenience and although that may be great for the times you need a buddy to go to that random Welcome Week activity with you, it usually isn’t sustainable. As my roommate Chloe always reminds me “people come into your life for a reason and a season” and as my favorite singer Nina Simone once said, “You’ve got to learn to leave the table when love’s no longer being served.” If someone isn’t adding value you to your life anymore it’s ok to walk away and take whatever lessons you were meant to take away from the situation.
My last piece of advice that I’ve gained this year is based on a Maya Angelou quote: “Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it.” This probably seems pretty self-explanatory but there have been many times this year where I’ve looked back to a situation and felt like I should’ve known the signs, handled it better, or done more to prevent the negative emotions that I went through. However, at the end of the day, I wouldn’t have been able to apply lessons that I hadn’t learned yet and I wouldn’t have valued the friendships I have now in the same way. That being said, I hope one of the many clichés in this article will actually help you on your journey to find and cherish your true friends.
Sources:
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